New York Times Jan 13, 2003

January 13, 2003, Monday
METROPOLITAN DESK
Man Starting Career in City Is Slain on Lower East Side
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN and MARC SANTORA (NYT) 1279 words
A 25-year-old man who arrived in New York last week to begin a career in banking was shot to death by an unknown killer early yesterday as he returned from an evening out to an apartment building on the Lower East Side where he had been staying with his sister and friends, the police said.
Investigators said the victim, Burke O'Brien, had stepped out of a cab with a male friend at 4 a.m. and was inserting his key in the entry lock of the six-story walkup at 75-79 Orchard Street, between Grand and Broome Streets, when the assailant shot him once in the chest and fled.
As Mr. O'Brien collapsed on the sidewalk, the police said, the friend ran inside to the ground-floor apartment where Mr. O'Brien had been staying, shrieking for help. The victim's sister, Raurie O'Brien, 24, ran out and tried cardiopulmonary resuscitation for six minutes until an ambulance arrived.
Jennifer Howell, 24, who lives in a second-floor apartment overlooking the scene, said she was awakened by the crack of the shot, looked out and saw the victim lying face up under the light of a street lamp. There was a woman kneeling to administer CPR and a man was standing by, she said.
''They kept saying they couldn't find the bullet hole,'' Ms. Howell said, and it was not until paramedics opened Mr. O'Brien's jacket and shirt that they found the small hole in his chest. Ms. Howell said she also observed a police officer with a flashlight who found a shell casing eight feet from the body.
Mr. O'Brien -- a Chicago native and a graduate of Colorado State College who had lived in Ecuador and Australia and was to have begun work with the Bank of America in New York shortly -- was taken to New York University Downtown Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival, the police said.

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